


Sharp Is Your Needle

by KMDWriterGrl



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 10:43:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KMDWriterGrl/pseuds/KMDWriterGrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A follow-up to "Another Bleeding Heart." Emily responds to the events in "Minimal Loss" and needs a little help processing from Rossi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharp Is Your Needle

_“Now there is a line is Genesis 9: “After the flood, kill men who shed the blood. Sharp is your needle, revenge is evil, wrong or right. Blind is your justice, cold as a Judas kiss, dark as the night._ ” –Alex Parker, “Another Bleeding Heart.”

 

PRENTISS: 

 

After talking with Reid in the back of the plane and then leaving him to escape into the pages of his book, Emily found herself restless and unable to sit still. Even though she was bone tired, she found herself pacing the aisles, finally heading for the front of the plane. 

 

Morgan was zoning out under his headphones, somewhere between asleep and awake. JJ was dead asleep, curled up on the couch with a pillow under her head and one at the small of her back. Hotch was sitting across the aisle from her, reading a novel and glancing up every once in a while to check on their heavily pregnant media liaison. 

 

Hotch gave her a questioning look as she walked past. She nodded in reply but didn’t speak—she was too tired to attempt any more conversation--and continued toward one of the empty couches. 

 

She sank wearily into the cushions, pressing her head back against the headrest and closing her eyes. She felt drained and hollowed out, as if she had just given birth or donated blood, and was torn between the impulses to laugh in utter relief or cry wild, scared tears. Judging by the lump in her throat, crying was going to win out. 

 

She heard footsteps walking toward her. Ice crackled, liquid spilled over, and cubes tinkled against the side of a glass. The couch gave next to her. Rossi. She could smell his cologne. He pressed a glass into her hand. 

 

“Drink this.”

 

“I don’t need a drink.”

 

“Yes, you do.”

 

Rather than argue, she knocked back the liquid and was surprised to find he’d simply given her a glass of ice water. 

 

“That wasn’t Scotch.” 

 

Rossi laughed softly. “Not this time.”

 

Without opening her eyes, Emily turned toward the sound of his voice. “Why the water?”

 

“If you could see how pale your face is, you’d have poured yourself a glass all ready.” Rossi gently pried the glass from her fingers and rose to fill it again. “Here, one more.”

 

“I’m okay.”

 

“It’s either this or an IV. And if it was my choice, you’d have both. Three days in that compound and I know you didn’t have nearly enough to eat or drink.” He pressed the glass back into her hand. “Drink up.”

 

 

Emily tossed back the water and was surprised that she did actually feel better. Not well enough to move off the couch but refreshed enough to open her eyes.

 

“Reid okay?” she asked, not because she didn’t know but because she wanted to lose herself in Rossi’s analysis of the situation. 

 

“He’s coping Reid-style ... disappear into a book for a while and then over-think things later.” Rossi’s fingers came to rest gently on her wrist. “Are _you_ okay?” His fingertips tightened just a bit as he felt for her pulse point. “You’re shaking.”

 

“I’m fine.” She would have been much more likely to convince him of that if her voice hadn’t broken on the phrase. 

 

“Emmy ...”

 

That nickname, the one he’d revealed just a few hours previously, caused the dam to break. Emily found herself turning her face away in the vain hope that he wouldn’t see her tears. 

 

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting from Rossi as a response, but it certainly wasn’t lightly tracing her cheekbone with his thumb to sluice away her tears. 

 

“You’re going to make it worse,” she said softly, wishing she could shrug away but too tired to do so. 

 

“If a friend comforting another friend is going to make it worse, I don’t know what it’s going to take to make it better.” Rossi’s voice was light. “It’s just shock, Emily. This is normal. I’m not going to think any less of you.”

 

“I’m going to start thinking less of myself,” she said bitterly. “I’m trained to handle stress, not give in to it.”

 

“You’re trained to handle hostage _negotiations_ , not the stress of being the hostage.” His hands fell from her face. “Cut yourself a little slack.”

 

_Being the hostage._

There were so many things that could have gone wrong in there, so much that could have gone even deeper and more fundamentally awry. Cyrus could have killed everyone with real poisoned wine, instead of simply testing his followers with a sadistic mind game. He could have killed Reid for attempting to profile and outthink him or beaten her even more brutally than he had. Jessie could have succeeded in blowing up the entire building. Morgan and Rossi could have been killed coming in with SWAT to rescue them.

 

The thoughts made her stomach clench tight. She reflexively drew into herself, shoulders tightening, hunching against the pain in her middle. She needed to cry, needed to be able to release the tears and the tightness that was squeezing her whole body into a clenched and agonized comma.   

 

 

Rossi gave her hands a gentle squeeze. “Relax.” 

 

She shook her head, unable to meet his gaze, fighting to get herself under control. After a minute, he released her hand, stood, and moved away to a seat closer to the others, leaving her alone to whatever release she’d allow herself.  

 

ROSSI:

 

He checked on her an hour later. She had fallen asleep on the couch, curled up small, clutching at a pillow. There were tears on her cheeks and his stomach lurched when he realized she was crying in her sleep. 

 

He brushed his thumb over her bruised cheekbone again, the sound of the beating that had wrought the damage to her face still loud in his ears. He recalled the moment he came face to face with her in the church basement, her face swollen and bruised, limping a little. His first visceral response had been to take her in his arms– not to hold, but to carry, to get her the hell out of that place. She’d never have allowed it, of course, would have fought him the whole way, but it hadn’t stopped the impulse from washing over him. He’d turned his back on the showdown that was sure to take place upstairs and followed her instead, unwilling to leave her side, sending Morgan up the stairs to find Reid. 

 

She’d set a punishing pace to get them out of the tunnel, even though the beating had clearly left her in pain. She’d stumbled at one point, going down to one knee on the hard packed floor. Without even meaning to, he’d taken her around the waist, his hands automatically moving to where they most wanted to be, and urged her forward. He didn’t remember calling her Emmy, though she insisted that he had, and given the fact that he had been so anxious for her, it didn’t surprise him that he’d let the name slip. 

 

He remembered feeling the explosion that rocked the church, feeling it down to his bones. He ended up falling on top of Emily, her hip catching him sharply in the midsection before he was able to brace himself on his hands and lever himself off of her. It had been neither the time nor the place for it, but he couldn’t help feeling a rush of warmth as he spent more seconds than he needed to moving away from her. 

 

What the hell was the matter with him, thinking that way in the middle of a scene—a crisis, no less? What kind of hold did Emily have over him that he could lose his singular focus just by looking at her? 

 

He’d had to fight to keep his touches clinical while he administered first aid for her cuts and scrapes in the mobile unit. He wanted to touch her now—the light caresses on her cheekbone to wipe away her tears just weren’t enough. Slowly he brushed an errant lock of hair away from her forehead then let his hand drift down the long line of her throat to rest over her pulse point. 

 

Emily’s eyes fluttered then opened just a bit. “Hey,” she murmured, voice husky with sleep. “Are we home?”

 

“Not yet.” He left his hand where it was, wondering if she’d notice that it was there. “I’m just checking on you.”

 

She shifted, turning onto her back with a wince. “I’m okay.”

 

“Yeah? You change your mind about going to the hospital yet?”

 

“The thought had crossed my mind.” She pressed a hand to her ribs. “Actually, it’s crossing my mind right now.”

 

“Let me go get you an ice pack,” he said, letting his hand fall from her neck. “Sit tight.”

 

He passed Morgan and Reid who were both dead to the world in their chairs. Morgan’s breathing sounded a little hoarse—probably from the smoke he’d inhaled—and Rossi made a mental note to persuade Derek to get checked out as soon as they got home. 

 

Hotch stood and followed him into the galley, watching as Dave filled a bag with ice and wrapped it in a dish towel. 

 

“She okay?”

 

“She says she is. Personally I want you to strong arm her into being checked out at the base hospital.”

 

Hotch smirked. “That would take a power beyond my ability,” he responded. “We’ll be getting in to Quantico so late I’ve arranged for rooms on the security floor for all of you. I don’t want anyone driving back to DC this late, not after this.”

 

Dave nodded. “That’s great, Aaron, thanks.” He headed back up the aisle, ice pack in hand. “I’m sitting back with her if you need me.”

 

He returned to Emily, who was drowsing somewhere between sleeping and waking. “Hotch got rooms for us on base,” he said, handing her the ice pack. “We’ll be home in a few hours.”

 

She nodded, laid the ice pack against her bruised right side, and shut her eyes again. “Shake me when we get home, okay?” she said, trying to get comfortable, her closed expression signaling that she had no desire to talk.

 

“I will,” he promised helplessly, wanting to say something—anything—comforting, kind, heartening , but finding, for once, that he didn’t have any words that would adequately convey to Emily what was in his heart and head. 

 

***

At four am, only three short hours after landing at Quantico, a knock on the door roused Dave. Pulling on a t-shirt over the sweatpants he wore to bed, he hurried to open the door, surprised when he found Emily on the other side, dressed in black yoga pants and a tank top and clutching at her right side. 

 

“Emily. Are you okay?” Dave ushered her inside. 

 

“I know I said I didn’t need a hospital,” she said, studiously refusing to look at him. “But I can’t take a deep breath.”

 

He nodded, all business. He knew she was expecting him to smirk and say, “I told you so,” but he wasn’t going to give her that reaction. Instead he guided her to the arm chair and picked up the phone to call down to the security desk. 

 

“Miguel, its Dave Rossi. I’ve got an injured teammate with me. Can you arrange for someone to drive us over to the base hospital? … Great, call up for me when they get here, will you? … Thanks.” He turned to Emily. “Is it worse when you’re sitting up or lying down?”

 

“It’s bad either way,” she said. “But worse sitting up, I guess.”

 

“I want you to lie down then. Come here.” He motioned her over to the bed and helped her stretch out, hiding a wince when she hissed with pain. “Did you ice it before you went to bed?”

 

Emily shook her head, still not looking at him. 

 

“They’re going to tell you to ice it, Em. That’s the only treatment, really—that and anti-inflammatories. It’ll be good to get x-rays done, though, just to make sure there’s nothing broken in there.” He laid a gentle hand on her right side, feeling for bumps and broken skin, and left his hand there, even when he found nothing out of the ordinary. “What made you change your mind?”

 

“My cousin Ray. I’ve been thinking about him all night.” Emily shifted uncomfortably. “He broke his ribs playing football his junior year of high school.”

 

“Ouch,” Rossi commiserated. “I can tell you from personal experience that’s no fun.” He moved his hand up to her forehead. Her face was flushed, pain making her run hot. “How’d cousin Ray manage to do it?” 

 

“He ended up at the bottom of a pile-up during a mid-season game. His nickname on the field was The Man of Steel, so of course he didn’t like to admit it if he got hurt, you know. He played the rest of that game, went to practice the next day despite being hurt, didn’t go see a doctor.”

 

“Bad move,” Rossi stated flatly. “What happened?” 

 

“He died in the middle of the night two days later. There’d been a puncture in his lung from a broken rib and every time he moved that puncture just got bigger and bigger and worse and worse.” Her voice caught. “I was just his stupid cousin Emily … 14 to his 17, nobody important compared to him. But I really liked him. We played together a lot as kids, before he got football all-star important.

 

“My aunt and uncle and Ray came over for dinner the night he died. We were sitting on the couch while our parents played cards, watching “Jaws.” He said he was feeling a little short of breath but we chalked it up to the fact that Nona had burned the rolls earlier and the house still smelled like smoke.” A tear worked its way down her cheek and she impatiently brushed it away. “You don’t know how awful I felt later, knowing that I could have said something and didn’t.” 

 

She looked up at Rossi, her eyes swimming. “And the more I thought about it the more scared I got. So I came and got you.”

 

Rossi stroked her hair back from her forehead. “I’m glad you did.”

 

The phone rang and he leaned over to pick it up. “Rossi … Great, Miguel, thanks. We’ll be right down.” He hung up. “Our escort’s here.” 

 

He helped her stand then kept an arm around her waist, not because she needed to be steadied but because, in a way, he felt that he did. “Let’s go get you put back together again.” 

 

Emily nodded, her hair brushing against his cheek. “Let’s hope I have better luck than Humpty Dumpty did.” 

 

Dave laughed. “Humpty didn’t have access to a Marine base hospital.” He pulled the door shut behind them, secure in the knowledge that a few hours from now he’d be sleeping beside her, able to do that much, at least, to comfort. 

 

END. 


End file.
